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"How Do We Choose? The Stories We Collect, The Ones We Don't": 2014 OHMAR Conference

4/24/2014 to 4/25/2014

When:

4/24/2014

Where:

Chemical Heritage FoundationPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania United States

Details

Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region announces a conference to be held on April 24th and 25th, 2014,
at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The
program committee invites participants to submit papers that broadly
interpret the conference theme,
"How do we choose? The stories we collect, the ones we don’t.”

This year’s conference is focused on exploring the
relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee, between what
we want to learn from our interviewee and what our interviewee allows us
to know. Oral history projects, whether based
in communities or institutions, often focus on one particular episode,
or a series of episodes, in someone’s life. So how do interviewers
choose the episodes on which to focus? And in what ways can interviewers
best encourage people to share these stories?
Also, how do we—historians, journalists, sociologists, anthropologists,
and others—tell a particular story based on what the interviewee
shared? What do we do when an interviewee makes the episode off limits
in the interview even before a question is asked
and, consequently, how do we cope with losing historical memory?

Topics for presentation and discussion might
include the methodology of oral history practice and theory; the
challenges of eliciting some stories at the exclusion of others; the
process of taking life histories as a methodological approach;
or the process of packaging oral history material into different
formats for audience consumption.

The program committee invites the submission of
individual papers, entire panels, or roundtables. We encourage
presentations that include audio-visual components. We especially encourage proposals from graduate students.
Paper proposals should include an abstract of 250-500 words, a brief
biographical summary of no more than 150 words about the author, and
contact information. Panel proposals should include
an overall abstract for the panel of 250-500 words that incorporates
brief paper summaries for each panelist, and, in addition, brief
biographical summaries of no more than 150 words and contact information
for each panelist. Roundtables should include an
abstract of 250-500 words and brief biographical summaries of no more
than 150 words and contact information for each discussant. Deadline for
proposal submission is
January 30, 2014. Please submit electronically to
ohmar.conference@gmail.com.